


The First Time

by LippiLions19



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends, Loneliness, Not Beta Read, Pre-Relationship, Realizations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25603936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LippiLions19/pseuds/LippiLions19
Summary: The first time Nicolo sees Yusuf killed my someone other than himself he is struck by fear and uncertainty. What if their inability to die only worked when they killed one another?...Basically the first time Joe dies and its not Nicky's fault.Pre-relationship, but still cute...Not Beta Read, We Die Like Men...Pretty much abandoned though I don't want to delete it, read if you would like.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 168





	The First Time

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a little fic of what might have been going through Nicky's mind the fist time he is not the one to kill Joe.
> 
> This is pre-relationship madness where they start to do the feelings.
> 
> I do not have a beta so if you find any mistakes please let me know :)

Two months out from the battle at Jerusalem and countless deaths later, Nicolo had come to the reluctant realization that there was no way for him to keep his unwilling companion dead, nor was there a way for himself to stay dead. He studied the man sitting opposite him across the little fire they had managed to build. He could feel the twitch in his eye pick up speed as he watched the other man sleep. Long since past killing each other in their sleep, Yusuf, that was his name Nicolo had learned, slept quietly, his wicked scimitar grasped lightly in his palm, his long dagger strapped somewhere else. 

Sleep began to pull at Nicolo’s eyes. If he was being honest with himself it had been there for quite a while, he was just unwilling to admit it. Checking the dwindling fire one more time and securing his own sword in his hand, Nicolo began to drift. 

His mind, the betrayer, drifted towards death. He had experienced it so many times by now, all at the hands of the man sleeping not two meters away from him, in some way. Their last death had been shared. They had still been fighting most of their free time then, nearly a week ago. Somehow they had made their way all the way from Jerusalem to the sea. They were fighting too close to the edge and Yusuf had lost his footing. Instinct drove Nicolo to grab after him, the both of them falling from the cliffs to the crashing waves and rocks below. Drowning, he decided, was very unpleasant. 

He didn't drown the first time; his head was bashed against a rock on the way down. Yusuf had managed to keep a hold of him while he was dead, Nicolo coming too just as the last of Yusuf’s strength gave out and they both began to sink, his first breath was not of air but of water. It was shocking, the salty brine of the sea causing him to lose the contents of his stomach even as he was drowning. They had both died several times before making it to shore, somehow, one never losing the other’s body.

They had not killed each other since. Nicolo knew that sometimes Yusuf woke up with a choked cry on his lips, reliving one death or another he suspected. His dreams were the same, his own deaths played over and over, shot through with dreams of two women and a man, fighting and dying just as Yusuf and he did. 

Sleep took him quickly. The exhaustion of their constant travels weighing on him heavily. 

His dreams this night were of his home; the lush rolling hills of his town, the smell of baking bread and stewing tomatoes that would invade the air in the later months of the summer, as it was now. He could see his home. His father was standing with his brother, also back from the crusade, his mother and sister waving at him as he returned victorious from the crusade. He wanted to run to them, told them so in his dream, but it felt as though he was running through tar, his feet sinking deep into the ground as the faces of his family turned sour. Their loving looks turning into fearful angry glares. He could see his little sister start to scream something pointing behind him. He turned to look, seeing the glinting blade of Yusuf’s scimitar swinging right for his throat.

“NICO…”

The cut off cry tore Nicolo out of his dream. He woke just in time to see Yusuf’s head falling back, no longer held up by the severed muscles of the front of his neck. The man standing behind Yusuf, holding the knife that had just killed his companion, grinned setting his eyes on Nicolo next. 

Fear struck Nicolo harder than he thought it would have at seeing Yusuf dead. Never had he seen Yusuf killed by any other hands than his own. Would he still be able to come back, or was that gift reserved only for when they each killed the other? His anger at the man was nearly blinding, almost feeling as though Yusuf had been stolen from him in some way.

Nicolo heard the second man before he saw him, felt the knife entering his back and piercing his lung even before that. The second man opened up his chest from the back, a long stab and drag doing more damage that he could hope to heal before dying, if he even would heal from someone else's blade. 

Falling to his side, Nicolo could feel himself bleeding out and dying. He could hear the men speaking some language that sounded closer to Yusuf’s mother tongue than his own and watched as they began stripping Yusuf’s body of his remaining armor. They rummaged through the packs the pair had managed to acquire somewhere along the way, taking the food and coin they had scrounged up as the gurgling bubble of air escaping through Nicolo’s back grated through the air. 

His vision was rapidly dimming by the time the thieves moved on to looting his body. The pain of them moving him was excruciating, worse than the time Yusuf had managed to sever his arm. Nicolo prayed for death, either to wake healed again, or as his final death, he no longer cared. His last thought was of Yusuf, how he was glad at least that they were dying together. If they were not revived by whatever power had blessed them, then so be it. Just before his final breath, fear once again wracked Nicolo’s body.

What if he woke up again, and Yusuf did not? He would be alone, forever.

…

“Nicolo, come back. It is time to wake up.”

His Italian was rough, but Nicolo appreciated the effort he was putting into learning his language. The realization that he was alive once again was his second thought after that, his third that Yusuf had returned as well. 

“Thank god,” Nicolo exclaimed, feeling his lung and back work to fully close up again. Nicolo opened his eyes, finding that Yusuf had his head in his lap and was brushing the hair off his forehead as he returned to the realm of the living. 

“Yes, thank god. I did not know if we would return after someone else killed us.” Yusuf’s hands were still and he looked Nicolo in the eyes. “When I awoke and you were still lying here I was scared that you would not return. It took so long for you to come back this time.”

“I thought the same of you as I was dying. That I could bear the both of us being dead, but if I were to return without you, I would be utterly alone for the rest of my life.”

The admission was startling to the both of them. They did not understand how they had gone from enemies, killing each other sometimes multiple times a day, to being so reliant on the other for immortal companionship.

Nicolo looked up at Yusuf as the last of his wound closed up, pulling himself into a seated position when he was able. The pair just sat and looked at each other, thinking about their unique situation and coming to a similar conclusion.

They would be with one another until their final death; nothing would drag them apart. An eternity alone more terrifying to them than any death ever could be.

“Come,” Yusuf said, standing and reaching a hand down to help Nicolo up. “Let's go find those men.”

Nicolo thought that was a great idea and followed after his companion, tracking the boot prints of the two unlucky souls that had dared to cross this immortal duo.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!
> 
> Kudos and Comments are adored :)


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